Fool
by Gelana
Summary: My first Chelsie ficlet, which seems to have grown into a multi chapter fic. Roped into something by Lady Mary, our intrepid butler is worried about repercussions.
1. Chapter 1

She was stood in his pantry doorway, watching him. He did not have to look up to know. He had heard the faint tinkling of her chatelaine against her skirts.

"Well, Mr. Carson, that was another thing entirely. You are quite good, you know."

He looked up at her cheerful words. "I've not ruined everything?"

"Ruined?" Her brow furrowed. "You think...?"

She lifted his hand and held it between her own two. She looked away, without making much effort to hide her smile. "You daft man. Do you really think I'd go off you for doing a bit of singing and juggling at a charity event, particularly when Lady Mary put you up to it? It was Lady Mary, I presume?"

He cleared his throat, flexed his fingers and hesitantly curled them around hers. They had taken to doing that as of late - since his proposal - taken to holding one another's hands. Not often, mind, just when they had an uninterrupted moment, which was rare indeed.

"She caught me juggling for Master George," he rumbled softly. "And reminded me that I once did the same for her."

Mrs. Hughes smiled at him. Fondly, was the word that came to his mind, and for the first time in weeks his heart lightened.

"You're a fool, Charles Carson," she stated matter-of-factly, "if you think that would change my opinion of you a whit."

...

He was shy of it, of touching her, she noticed, but not of reciprocating when she brushed her hand over his. It was as if her initiative gave him encouragement or permission, perhaps a bit of both. He would thread his fingers through hers and clasp her hand. The strength of his grip wavered with his nerve.

"Mrs. Hughes," he would say when it happened. That was all he would ever say in the moment, and only once, with the first contact of her skin to his. In that visceral register that kept her awake at night.

"Mr. Carson," she lilted unevenly in response. (Every time.) Of course not before her breath caught in the back of her throat. (Every time.)

Not this night. Because he had been too busy being worried, and she had been too busy being warmed by his fretting. Perhaps it was time for a shift in the ritual.

She lifted his hand to her lips and pressed a bold kiss to his knuckles.

"Mrs. Hughes," he rumbled. It snapped her eyes to him the way he said it. She chased after her breath, failed miserably. Continued to fail miserably when he encircled her wrist loosely with his free hand. And then his mouth was at her wrist and he was opening her fingers and kissing the center of her palm. And she made a decidedly wanton noise, shocking both of them still.

It took her a long time to gather herself. She still held his hand when she was able to roughly whisper, "Mr. Carson."


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm sorry," he said, breaking their contact, holding up his hands.

"What?" she asked, entirely distracted. "Why?"

"That was vulgar. I shouldn't have ..." he trailed of looking absurdly flustered.

What was vulgar was how her sex had opened and pulsed for him when all he had done was chastely kiss her hand. She managed a feeble _och_ and tried to say something else - found herself unable. She had to look away. Traced the leaves of the cyclamen with her eyes.

"Nothing," she began unsteadily, when she found herself able to form words again. "Nothing about you, Mr. Carson, is vulgar."

She had found herself, as of late, allowing her line of sight to fall on his mouth. The feel of it on her palm had gone straight to the small of her back. She found that she couldn't hold her gaze away. She wasn't prepared for the way he looked at her then. Didn't know what to do with it or where to put it. Her own heightened sense of arousal was strung ridiculously taut, and his look cut through her, pricked out a shiver of lust that rippled the length of her spine.

"Regarding that subject, I shall have to respectfully disagree, Mrs. Hughes," he burred.

Again she was left breathless. It was all very disconcerting.

"Shall you now?" she sang, hearing the Argyle rise in her throat. "And what, might I ask constitutes a vulgarity in your mind, Mr. Carson?"

The moment she said it she wished she hadn't. It had been intended as a jest, but this, all of this was new. And she didn't mean to ask him such a personal question.

She thought she saw something flicker in his eyes. Fear, maybe, before shame cut it short. She swallowed and looked away.

"That didn't come out at all right," she said softly, uncertainly, intensely aware of how her hips were tilted ever-so-slightly towards him, that her breasts felt full and taut against the constraint of her corset. "I only mean that you don't offend me, that I could never see your actions as vulgar, Mr. Carson. Not a one." Until a few months ago her life had been a guarded dance of holding herself apart from him. Now the dance had changed and was charged and she was very unsure of her new steps.

"I fear you _would_ take offense if you were to see into the nature of some of my thoughts, Mrs. Hughes," he said with grave seriousness.

"I doubt that Mr. Carson." She blushed and looked away herself. "I doubt it very much."

She reached out blindly and found his hand. She held it, needed to for a moment before she could look at him again. And when she did it surprised her how closely he was stood. How intently he watched her, with just as much of a lost look as she imagined she bore. She felt him again in wanton places. She loosed a short laugh. _At their age._ But even that thought had begun to feel feeble. They were not so very old.

"Do you?" he asked. She was suddenly unsure what exactly he was asking her.

"Have I not proved myself over the years to be of sterner stuff than all that," she said tartly. "We are to be wed after all."

He hummed low. _Seductively_ was the word her mind supplied, but her thoughts tended to get away from her — particularly as of late — so she tried to ignore them. She couldn't ignore the way he ran his thumb over the back of her fingers or the shy smile he gave her.

"We are, indeed," he intoned. "Well then, Mrs. Hughes, since you aren't ready to chuck me out with the bath water just yet, I was thinking of drowning my sorrows in a bit of sherry. Would you care to join an old fool?"

"I might do, at that, Mr. Carson," she said crisply.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/n: Much gratitude for all the kind reviews. I also want to thank Kouw and silhouettedswallow for their amazing beta-ing!**

* * *

These emotions came on so slowly and imperceptibly that he barely noticed them, until he could notice little else. It was so much deeper and cataclysmic, all incremental fault lines and the slow creeping of tectonic plates until suddenly there was such a pressure that ... Well he wondered if that wasn't part of the great shaking beneath his feet that he had told her about.

Because suddenly he was here, with her and what was once unthinkable was slowly becoming his reality. He was going to marry this woman he respected — and yes, loved — above all others. (And desired - for he had desired her long before he let himself love her; had kept himself apart from her _because_ of his desire.) He had kissed her hand; it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to do. And she hadn't rebuked him. (_Of course she hasn't rebuked you, you old fool, she kissed your hand first!_) And that noise she made. That sound; it was the most erotic thing he had ever heard.

All of this and they were still able to face one another, to converse. He had worried about it. Around her, in regards to this nameless, ancient thing that moved between them, he was certain of nothing. So it pleased him that despite his liberty, they sipped sherry and spoke in hushed but enthusiastic tones of their plans for the house on Brouncker road. He savored their quiet night-caps together, now more than ever. He found himself quite taken with the renovations of the house, and she was usually very good at keeping those ideas from getting out of hand. This time though, she seemed to grow quickly distracted. He watched her from the corner of his eye. Her expression went distant, guarded and she worried her lip. He touched her arm lightly to gather her attention.

"I'm boring you," he raised his eyebrows apologetically.

"No, not at all," she said.

"You look to be half a world away."

She felt her embarrassment acutely. As acutely as she felt the tentative way he touched her arm. She had been thinking of what remained unsaid. How could she speak with him about any of it? What would she say? What could she tell him? That for years now she has tried half-heartedly to not think of him in the silent dark of late night or early morning when she soothes the need between her legs. That she had said no to Joe Burns — dear, sweet Joe — because it would be deceitful to pledge herself to the poor man when her heart had only ever been in the officious palm of the butler. How to even begin to relay the more than two decades worth of want that has simmered within her? At this point, she was fairly certain he mirrored her own desires, but they weren't yet wed. And much hinged upon if they married sooner or later, which was entirely dependent on the family's willingness to accept a wed butler and housekeeper. She supposed that after a wounded valet, the chauffeur marrying their youngest, and a lady's maid with a prison record, that their union would be nothing less than welcomed. Though one never could be sure about these things. She'd marry him tomorrow if he wanted, but that was putting the cart before the horse.

"I was only thinking of..." she said pausing, feeling decidedly out of sorts, her blood rushed loudly in her ears with her sudden decision to own the tension (not tension exactly, more of a humming, whining need) between them. "Well, of many things, but specifically that you aren't the only one whose thoughts take the occasional turn. You do know Mr. Carson," she continued, turning to look at him fully, grown bold with the memory of his lips on her wrist. "That I couldn't marry just for convenience. That I..." her voice caught in her throat.

"Is that what you think? Please, Mrs. Hughes, let me... That is to say..."

"Would you let me finish you daft man," she lilted bemusedly back at him and cleared her throat awkwardly. "It's just that ... Well it's as you said: I'm not marrying anyone else. Only you. You are very dear to me, Mr. Carson. Very dear to me, indeed."

She looked at him, willed him to hear the love in her words, to hear what she couldn't say. His face, the tenderness and vulnerability she saw written there nearly brought tears to her eyes. She wished, not for the first time, that her table was anywhere but between them. Wondered what it would feel like to really touch him. She had only ever clasped his hand or leaned into his arm, touched his forehead or cheek with her the backs of her fingers to feel for a fever. It had been so very long since she had been held by a man, by anyone. She wanted to be nearer him and the more she thought about it the less she knew what to do with herself. It was always so complicated with him, with them. What was between them, whatever it was, was so much larger than the two of them; it made her uneasy. It boiled down to this: she had loved him, wanted him, desired him for as long as she could remember and instead resigned herself to the impossibility of it. Now the rusted cogs between them had been greased and were slowly screeching to life and she had never truly faced the reality of what might happen if they were to begin moving together.

...

"There is not a woman more dear to me on this earth than you, Elsie Hughes," he stated, eager for her to hear the truth in his words. "And I am a fool indeed if I have led you to believe anything else."

She looked away, but smiled at that. Broadly enough that he felt pleased to be the cause.

"Dearer even than Lady Mary?" she asked, with impishly raised eyebrows.

He dropped his rich voice even lower, "I haven't asked Lady Mary to be my wife, now, have I?"

"Why Mr. Carson, you managed to make that sound positively risqué," she teased gently. She'd never let him forget that moment in the waves. He never wanted her to. She laughed aloud, beautiful in her mirth.

He wondered again if he would be able to taste the sherry on her lips. They were to be married after all. There had been no announcement, not yet, not to the staff or the family, but that made it no less official to him. They instead both seemed to prefer their privacy, to savour the secret of it, the quiet ownership of something altogether their own for at least a little while longer. It was a slow creeping time of mantels shifting and heating, of subductal motions, the swallowing of the old and buried, remaking it molten and new.

"And if I did," he intoned. Standing, he shifted his chair so that their knees (barely) touched when he sat back down. Propriety be damned - they were the last ones awake. "What was it you said? Ah, yes. We're getting on Mrs. Hughes, we can afford to live a little." And God help him, but he forgot himself (chose to forget himself); he reached out and touched her face. It was just a graze of his knuckle, but the softness of her skin and her sudden sharp intake of breath cut through him like a blade. The hush of the sleeping house fell around them. It pleased him how she swallowed, and looked at him in glances.

"It's late," she said.

"It is indeed."

"We have to be up before the chickens to ready the house for the hunting party."

"We do," he murmured sonorously.

She pushed out of her chair, just before he rose from his, and half-stepped away. His hand caught her wrist again, seemingly of its own volition. They stood, bodies nearly touching, not quite looking at one another. He wanted to know what it was like to properly soak up her warmth, to touch her hair, to kiss her throat. He wanted so many things. She was the brave one, though, the one who made him feel steady when he floundered.

Not in this, he realized with a start. She had waited for him to take the lead in this, and shockingly, somehow he had managed it without mucking it up too badly. Yes, there had been a sticky patch or two as they moved along, minor misunderstandings as they both became accustomed to the newness, the permission, (though he was still determining what exactly was permissible) the heady and slow acknowledgment that there was and very much had been something strong and deep and tremulous between them. No, he had somehow managed to be the one to take the lead in this coming together, and hadn't yet derailed them.

It pleased him how they were growing used to one another, to this new facet of each other. He so enjoyed being soft, open with her, tender, holding her hand after he had presented her with a taste of choice vintages left over from dinner, giving her little things. He had taken to that - quietly slipping little nothings here and there. He left a length of rust colored ribbon in her drawer, (she had affixed it artfully to her hat and given him a shy-eyed smile before their walk to church) a tiny box of sweets - lemon drops - slid into the pocket of her coat, a small, but fine bar of lightly perfumed soap left hidden amidst papers atop her desk. Flowers, picked on his walk from the village on his day off, arranged in a nosegay vase near her clock. A crisply ironed kerchief, with two small bluebells embroidered on the corner, pressed between the pages of the book she was reading. She never outright thanked him, she didn't need to, the look she gave him after she had discovered an item was enough. He had felt each one of those looks low in his belly. And now, here she was, stood close enough to him that he could feel the heat radiating off of her. She was so lovely, and looked so decidedly unsure of herself. It shocked (and delighted) him to his core when that he could make her feel unsure. With geologic slowness he lifted his hand to her cheek once more, opening it this time, letting his fingers dip just slightly into her hair. (It was softer than he'd expected.) He tried very hard to keep from trembling (and failed) as she loosed a soft sigh and leaned into his palm.

When she lifted her gaze to him, her lovely, expressive eyes were widened and waiting. Waiting for him, he realized in wonder. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. Listened, pleased with himself, to the hitch in her breath. He felt her small palm rest on his waistcoat, and then his arm looped around her waist and he was holding her to him, and she was so real and solid and her grip on him was sudden and surprisingly strong. They stood, still as stone for a long moment.

"Mr. Carson," she whispered. It was exquisite.

"Mrs. Hughes," he rumbled. She started a bit and shivered.

"Are you well?" he asked, his concern immediate.

"Oh, it's nothing." She hid her face in his chest and it thrilled him. When she spoke it was in that shy, unsure tone again. "Your voice. I didn't expect to feel it move through you like that."

"Not too grating I hope," he smiled into her hair.

"Don't be daft. It's lovely," she lilted.

"You're lovely," he burred. He smiled at the way her breath caught in her throat again.

"Hush, you," she admonished. She gave a short, uncomfortable laugh. "You're as bad as one of the hallboys flirting with the housemaids. Besides, you've no need to sweet-talk me; I've already said yes."

"But you are lovely," he said with conviction. She was fierce and lovely; she was fire and wind, molten rock and nourishing rain. He had never told her. Not in words. How could he? It would have been the height of inappropriateness. In a way it still was. But he had waited long enough to say it out loud. It felt good - steadying - to voice it, even if his simple sentiment was inadequate.

She looked up at him. "Flatterer."

Her breath had quickened, he could feel it, hear it. Before he could dissuade himself, he leaned down to steal a respectful kiss and promptly bumped his blasted nose against hers. She shushed his apologetic splutter and giggled — actually giggled — like a school-girl.

"They do say that practice makes perfect," she murmured. Her gaze dropped from his eyes to his lips and back again. Dully, it occurred to him that she wanted him to kiss her. He had hoped she wouldn't mind his presumptuousness, the intimacy — but there was no denying the way she looked at him, the desire in her eyes. He took a deep breath and with a bit more care, tipped his head and touched his lips lightly to hers in what was supposed to be a chaste kiss.

"You can do better than that, Mr. Carson," she whispered against his mouth, with darkened eyes. He felt her lips part, felt the very tip of her tongue trace the seam of his mouth. Now it was he who made a wanton noise, who opened to her and was done for.


End file.
